Oliver and Company (1988)

And now we come to the one that's the most 80s of them all, Oliver and Company.

The Movie:

Oliver and Company is the 27th film in the Disney Animated Canon and the final film of Disney's Dark Age.  Despite opening the same weekend as Don Bluth's The Land Before Time, which beat it at the box-office that weekend, the film did well at the box-office long-term, besting the beloved dinosaur classic in total take.  The majority of critics didn't care for the film, but the movie's success prompted Disney to continue to release movies on an annual basis, a trend that for the most part continues to this day.

Loosely based on the story of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Oliver and Company tells the story of a kitten in 1980s New York City.  Oliver is the only kitten in his litter that isn't adopted, and he is left to the streets.  There he meets Dodger, a streetwise dog, who uses Oliver in a scheme to get food.  After Dodger refuses to share the take, Oliver follows him to the hideout of Fagin and his gang of dogs.  Fagin is indebted to the loan shark Sykes, and the following day the gang looks to make a score to help out their master.  Their target is a limo, but the plan fails, and Oliver is left behind.  However, the limo's passenger is the young girl Jenny, who happily adopts Oliver.  Dodger and the gang think Oliver is in trouble, so they hatch a plan to get him back, leading everyone on an unexpected adventure.

I have a soft spot for Oliver and Company.  This was the first Disney movie I saw in theaters upon its initial release, and my six-year-old self absolutely loved it.  How does it hold up?  I still find it to be a fun movie, but there's a reason it's not among the all-time greats.  The animation style is very odd.  I'm not sure if that was an intentional choice or not, but at times it looks very gritty, not as clean as The Great Mouse Detective, which came right before, or The Little Mermaid, which came after.  However, that might be part of the charm of the film, as this is 1980s New York City, when the city still had a lot of grit and wasn't yet cleaned up for tourists.  And you can definitely feel the 80s in this movie, from the songs to the fashion of Jenny's clothes to the sites of the city.

The excellent voice work is one of the movie's saving graces.  This movie had a strong line-up - Joey Lawrence, Billy Joel, Cheech Marin, Bette Midler, Robert Loggia.  Natalie Gregory voiced Jenny, and while not a well known name like the others, she too has a strong presence in her work.

For a lot of people, the music is what they remember from this film.  "Why Should I Worry," sung by Billy Joel and written by Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight, is the signature song of the film.  The movie opens with "Once Upon a Time in New York City," and sung by Huey Lewis, it is pure 80s.  Barry Mann and Howard Ashman wrote that song.  In fact, this was the project that brought together Ashman and the Disney studios.  The other songs are "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer of the Pointer Sisters, "Perfect Isn't Easy," sung by Bette Midler (two of the songs writers are Barry Manilow and Jack Feldman, who would work with Alan Menken on Newsies), and "Good Company." 

The score was composed by J.A.C. Redford, and it is a grand composition.  Redford might not be a household name, but he is a composer with an extensive catalog of classical works.  Plus he was the conductor for such movies as The Little Mermaid and The Nightmare Before Christmas and the orchestrator for movies such as WALL-E, Avatar, Skyfall, Romeo and Juliet (2013), and Saving Mr. Banks.

Side note - Billy Joel is one of my favorite singers, so maybe this movie planted that seed in my six-year-old mind.

Presence in the Parks:

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but once again, you won't find Oliver and Company in the parks.  It did get a little love in parade floats and stage shows when the movie was new, but not so much today.